At Rorate today there is a useful piece by Roberto de Mattei. In spite of his strange jabberings about “the jab” It is useful in that it provides a few concise paragraphs that put into perspective where we have been and where we are now.
Here are examples.
John XXIII attributed a specific pastoral character to the Council that was opening. Historians of the school of Bologna have defined the pastoral dimension of Vatican II as “constitutive”. This pastoral dimension became the form of the Magisterium par excellence. At first this was not evident to all, but in the following months and years, it became clear that John XXIII’s allocution was the manifesto of a new ecclesiology. And this ecclesiology, according to progressive theologians, was supposed to be the foundation of a new Church, opposed to the “Constantinian” one of Pius XII. A Church no longer militant, no longer defining and assertive, but itinerant and in dialogue: a synodal church.
In this new perspective, the Holy Office, which for centuries had been the Church’s bulwark against the errors that attacked it, no longer had a reason to exist, or in any case, had to change its mission.1
On 8 November 1963, the cardinal archbishop of Cologne, Josef Frings (1887–1978), asked to speak and, to general surprise, launched a violent attack against the Holy Office, directed by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani (1890–1979). In front of all the bishops of the Church gathered under the presidency of the pope, Frings denounced the “immoral methods” of the Holy Office, stating that its procedure “no longer suits our age, harms the Church and is an object of scandal for many”.
This is a good summation. Link it to what John O’Malley proposed in his book on Vatican II, namely that the true “spirit” of the Council, it’s true message, is in the different tone it sets, and we have more pieces of the mosaic.
De Mattei draws a parallel with the man Paul VI put into the newly minted CDF (olim Holy Office) as undersecretary (sent to change the operation and goals of the congregation, which is how Francis has worked) with the appointment of the kissy-book writer and probable plagiarist from Argentina.
The anecdote at the end, which I had never heard, is worth the few minutes.
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The church world is a closed environment, and the only people who have insight into it are people like yourself, Fr. Z. The laity only get the occasional benefit of insights when they are shared. Some laity know a great deal about the inner workings, some, like myself, know very much less. But even knowing little, what does seem definite is this, that church world environment is now largely filled with evil men doing evil things, and, likely in this time frame as de Mattei highlights, the intention actively began for a new church, torpedoing the old. One could say they’ve certainly had success, as they define it, and have reached the pinnacle of their desires with Francis. But this is not going far enough. Francis wants traditionalists out of the church. It is hard to understand a church that blows up it’s history to create an entirely new church, but how to understand the head of that effort who relentlessly antagonizes those who cling to the original structure with such malice that they would seek to drive them out of the newly formed church? Wouldn’t the ordinary goal be to grow the population by continuing the soothing lie that the “spirit of Vatican II” means a continuity with the past? What is the purpose, for the new church, of diminishing the population by persecution, punishments, insults, visitations, and so on? Who could say that this makes sense to an organization that, let’s face it, is facing a numbers crisis, a collapse in membership, formation, etc. Who could honestly say this can be reconciled, a church in crisis, that flogs and flays it’s members, with the head on record as saying he will be the one to bring schism, and he’s “not afraid of it”, and then acts in accordance with that stated goal by abusing the members, openly, viciously. None of this makes sense for even a dysfunctional entity that has any interest in actually continuing. The argument could be made this would be perhaps the goal of an entity that has no interest in continuing, and who’s actual aim is to implode the organization itself. It is one thing to say I don’t like this edifice and mean to change it. It is another thing to say I hate this edifice and will end it.
Which one do we have.
I’ve always had an issue with John XXIII’s apparent ignorance of the tru nature of mercy and theological medicine.
What he calls the “weapons of Rigor”, I call the implements of a spiritual surgeon whose job is sometimes to cut out cancer.
@TonyB
My general impression of John XXIII is that of a sincere man, of generous disposition and humane tastes. Most such men have a prevailing weakness, the belief that with enough eloquent dialogue they can rule mankind for the better, and convince anyone of the truth. The “cedant arma togae” of Cicero.
It never works out that way, of course.
@TheCavalierHatherly
I appreciate the response, and I understand.
The problem, I guess, is that people have forgotten that we are at war. We have always been at war, and always will be, until Christ returns to end it.
The mercy of the Inquisition was not a pretty thing, but it was mercy. It was a mercy to those who needed to see justice done, it was a mercy to those in need of correction, it was a mercy to the unjustly accused who could not have cleared themselves before a secular magistrate, and it was a mercy to a society on the verge of civil war.
All things considered, I think I would rather have been tried by the Inquisition than by today’s courts.
the anecdote is priceless and believable. may the Lord be merciful to me and all those who have defamed Him
Why did I not find the Congar incident toward the end of Roberto de Mattei’s article in anyway a surprise? Because I’ve witnessed continually since my days in high school in the sixties parallel exhibitions of contempt by edgy priests and sisters, even Carmelite nuns and Trappist monks of a certain bent, bold comportment contemptuous of Christ’s Church. Is it any wonder that our country, indeed the globe, is subsumed in theological, philosophical, moral and emotional collapse?
We are no longer able to advert our eyes to the universal abuse — the manipulation, the deception, the mendacity of an episcopate gone rogue, drunk on their own egos. When divine revelation is abandoned is there any worship remaining of the One True God? Nature abhors a vacuum. They elevate their own vacuous notions.
Presently we are in the jaws of a soft ecclesial atheism, but the bite is sure to come down in the not so distant future and ever so deliberately. They deprived three generations of accurate catechesis to make them vulnerable to the crunch. Be aware.
>>In spite of his strange jabberings about “the jab”
which are strange only that in that he manages to give a rational and – I do not mean every tiniest details, but: – correct answer to a question rather than subjecting his mind to either the mood of the mighty or, which in that case is probably the heavier temptation, the mood of the ones oppressed by the mighty. The latter often happens, and it is understandable and perhaps excusable: but not right. Kudos to Roberto de Mattei.
I don’t have a problem, myself, about Pope St. John XXIII’s “try dialogue for a change”, and some things really did need to change, such as the Index of Forbidden Books*. However, he himself said that “the deposit of Faith is one thing, that is, the truths that are contained in our venerable doctrine; the way in which they are announced is another”; which is both in itself right, and means at the minimum that you cannot teach false things and one cannot always choose what questions the inquirers ask (which of course must be answered truthfully). Also, the idea of “opening the windows” means closing them once again what the fresh air is in; and dialogue and shutting one’s ears to the “prophets of dismay” for a time if done seriously means that after it has had the successes it could have, and perhaps largely been proven unsuccessful, one takes stock of it in a sober manner.
And of course, more openness and dialogue in one’s sermons to Outside, which perhaps was indeed needed, means that it is less of a time for major liturgy changes than any other. One need one support-leg, right?
[* It is quite true that people must be warned not to endanger one’s faith. But over-warning makes people disregard all warning, and apparently sometimes books were put on the index who merely triggered some of the pious, as we call it now. It was not right that a thoroughly Catholic work like Flaubert’s Salammbô was put there for, I guess, the mere fact that the people described so detailedly were pagans; also, I think the proper attitude to an altogether really moving Christian work like Les misérables, whose author other than Flaubert did insert some of his anticlericalism in some parts, is “I disagree with him there” rather than “this is an evil work, and I might well lose my faith through reading it”.)
John XXIII is half right.
It is true that it is possible than any dogmatic text can be expressed using different words.
On the other hand, there are cautions
1. No new formulation can directly contradict the Church’s dogmatic text.
2. No new formation, which itself does not contradict the Church’s dogmatic text, can permit another formulation that in fact does contradict it. Among the examples is the use of Transignification or Transfinalization to describe the Eucharist. Although in themselves neither contradicts Transubstantiation, it is nevertheless possible that they can be used by people who deny Transubstantiation.
There are of course people who maintain that the word Transubstantiation is just a Formulation by St Thomas. In fact, it is found in Lateran IV in 1215, ten years before the birth of St Thomas.
My experience since 1970 is that there are people in the Church who have no trust in Truth and are willing to say anything to manipulate people.
I am reminded of something told me by a univ music student some years ago. The definition of harmony now is two or more notes played at the same time, regardless of how they sound together. Dissonance, then, is no difference from harmony.
My general impression of John XXIII is that of a sincere man, of generous disposition and humane tastes. Most such men have a prevailing weakness, the belief that with enough eloquent dialogue they can rule mankind for the better, and convince anyone of the truth. The “cedant arma togae” of Cicero.
@ CavalierHatherly: what you say makes sense. We should note, however, that the prelate who thinks this way is doing so because his thinking has been trained and formed by teachers imbued with modernism, i.e. the modernism that Pius X condemned quite specifically in Pascendi Dominici Gregis. If he had any training at all in the philosophy and theology of the works of St. Thomas, it was very likely superficial, with plenty of “but we know better now”, and nothing in the LEAST BITlike discipleship of learning to think like the master theologian that Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, and Pius XI demanded of seminaries.
As Bishop Vitus Huonder says, the correction can only be found in backtracking to the right thinking, believing, and practicing that was whole and proper, and make our way forward on that sound footing. The mistakes of the 20th century effort within the Church to “come to terms” with modernity by the specific pathway of adopting modernism created a crisis of epic dimension in the Church, and we aren’t going to unwind that crisis by pretending the source of it is something it isn’t. If the Church needed to do something new to address the errors of modernism, it needed something other than taking on those errors. Whatever that new thing might be that the Church needs, we need to re-set ourselves on the true foundations, and then deal with modernity with fresh efforts.
Saying that we need a new Church is nothing less than saying Christ founded the wrong Church. You might as well just ditch Christ and found YOUR OWN
church, and stop pretending to be Christian.
@TonyO
I don’t believe John XXIII was a modernist. The question is, how does one deal with modernism. It is a heresy that purports to use traditional terminology with twisted definitions, explicitly or secretively.
And that where the trouble begins. They can just lie. That’s how they got into positions of authority under those popes that you listed. Attempts at active suppression availed little. Those demands were made of the seminaries precisely because they weren’t being run that way; good laws are enacted because bad practices are rampant… otherwise they would go without saying. I think pope John thought something along the lines of “let them come out in the open for a fight,” except it turned out not to be much of a fair fight, in the end.
An observation that comes to mind in reading the comments: if you dialogue with someone with opposing views the natural tendency will be to try to move toward a middle position. This can be a good thing if the views in the dialogue share in the basic beliefs (as witness St Thomas Aquinas) but if the dialogue is between a believer and a skeptic the default conclusion seems to be that God exists but does not demand much of us. This in turn opens the door for other voices to take over.